


Carnivals and Charity Wards

by hollyjollyturnabout



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, These children I s2g, This is way too cute for words, drug mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 01:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4000255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyjollyturnabout/pseuds/hollyjollyturnabout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some days when the fun outweighs the guilt and pity. This isn't one of those days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnivals and Charity Wards

Okay, admittedly, the carnival was not one of Tavros’s best ideas for a date.

The young kids there pretty much climbed him and his chair like an amusement park ride, causing him to capsize at least three times before he even got into the park. They also enjoyed petting and grabbing his auburn mohawk or stabbing their grubby fingers into his freckles, which he was not comfortable with in the slightest. However, he was totally unable to say no to the little kid-os. Unfortunately, he had a LOT of hair, and EVEN MORE freckles, splattered all over his face and shoulders like a failed fifth-grade art project (more specifically, his failed fifth-grade art-project). 

He was also waiting in the line by himself, which was a terrible idea for anyone in a wheelchair. People stared a lot more when he was alone, with looks of confusion, disgust, or the worst: pity. He hated when people looked at him as if he was this poor little boy that had wandered away from his mom. He was fine. He was nearly independent. Every building had handicap-accessibility. He was cool with rolling himself everywhere. He was fine. 

His therapist told him to ignore the people who gave him those stares and think about other things. He stared at the back of the person in front of him and thought about seeing Gamzee. He blushed and chuckled a bit to himself.

What a goof.

He thought about Gamzee meeting him on the first day of school, when he reached out his hand and asked, “What up, my bro?” He thought about the way he asked politely about pushing his chair, and then respectfully said “A’ight, bro. Just makin’ sure you got this, little man,” when Tavros asked him not to. They had just walked side by side, Gamzee shuffling along with small strides while Tavros pushed along, looking up at him. Gamzee mostly just talked about things around them, like “Dude, those motherfuckin’ lights? How wicked are those, bro. They just… make light. So we can all see. How the motherfuck do they all up and do that? They got some god damn miracles up in there or some shit? And the motherfuckin’ best thing eva, bro, is we don’t even give ‘em anything in return. They probably do it outta the god damned beautiful goodness in their hearts. How awesome is that?!” Tavros kept laughing and saying stupid things in response. He wasn’t really that good at conversation, but Gamzee didn’t care. Gamzee was just happy bei-

Tavros was jolted out of his thoughts as he felt a jolt on his wheelchair handles. His head snapped forward and back fast enough to give him whiplash. He grunted in pain, then turned around to see who had nudged him.

A tall lady, maybe in her 30s, looked back down at him. Her face was coated in makeup, and her hair was done in a fancy up-do. Her grin down at him was so wide that Tavros could see a bit of lipstick smeared on her teeth.

Oh no…

Tavros didn’t try to hate ladies like this. He really tried not to. They didn’t have bad intentions, really. They were just people, like himself, trying to help someone out a little bit. Trying to spread a little love to others. But instead of cleaning up some trash around the park or holding the door for people, she had grabbed onto someone’s wheelchair and was likely going to try to pilot him around the amusement park for the rest of the day.

“Don’t worry about it, dear! I’ll help you out!” Her ringing voice just made Tavros’s head slouch further down on his chest. Resignation to his fate had pretty much set in at this point. It was really hard for him to say no to people like this, or speak up in protest about this. He would probably just wait for her to ask about if he wanted to go to this place or that, and he would nod a little bit, and she would take him there, and he would pretend to look at the balloons, or the two-headed girl, or the strongman, but really he would just be upset that he wasn’t with Gamzee, helping him prepare for his big show for tonight. He would text him while the woman was in the bathroom, saying that he was tied up with something and couldn’t make it to the dress rehearsal, and he would try to make it to the performance, and he would probably say he was sorry about 14 times in one text, and just plain burst into tears when he saw the reply text of “:(“, and make the poor woman panicked and she would ask “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, honey? Do you need to go to the bathroom?” and that would cause him to practically EXPLODE on the poor woman, and just make everyone uncomfortable, and why did this always happen to him?

He slumped even lower, tears already clinging to the edges of his eyes. He heard the woman’s heels click as she walked. Click. Clack. Click. They were almost through the line, into the carnival, into Tavros’s hell. Click. Clack. Click. If only he had some sort of measure of confidence, of believing in himself, maybe he could stand up to her. Click. Clack.

Then came a patter, like the sound of sneakers on asphalt. It was getting louder, faster. Tav didn’t even turn around to look. He assumed it was a little kid, or an excited jogger, but nothing could have prepared him for who it really was.

“What’s up, Tav-bro?”

Tavros turned so suddenly that he nearly simultaneously capsized his wheelchair and gave himself whiplash. “G-gamzee?” His voice cracked slightly, his slight stutter showing, as it always did when his “special motherfuckin’ friend” was around.

The woman did not look as happy as he did. Most people tended to stick their noses in the air around Gamzee. Was it the messy hair? Was it the vague stench of weed? Was it the dreadlocks? Was it the facepaint? Probably the facepaint. Eh, it worked for the carnival, but movie dates, not so much. Bridal showers, not so much. Meeting the parents, NOT SO MUCH, GAMZEE.  
Back to the topic at hand. The lady didn’t like the makeup.

“Pardon me, who are you?” She said, her voice raising an octave and a “polite” smile plastered on her lips.

“I’m Gamzee,” Gamzee stated, almost confused, as if it took him a moment to remember 1) the question asked and 2) what the actual answer to that question was.

“Gamzee? Well, Gamzee, I happen to be helping this boy out with his day. He wants to see the carnival.”

Gamzee and Tavros gave each other a look at “boy.” They had been together for so long that they could honestly read each other’s faces.

_Boy?_

_I know, right? This lady’s crazy. Please help me get rid of her._

_...Boy?_

_Gamzee!_

Gamzee broke eye contact finally, shaking his head and blinking fast to remember what the conversation was about. He finally faced the lady head-on, and calmly said, “Look, lady, I’m sorry if your mission for the day was helpin’ Tav-bro, but I’m gonna have to ask you to move away now.”

“Move away?!” The woman pressed a hand to her chest, her mouth open wide, trying to call attention for herself. “You want me to ‘move away’ when I’m helping this poor pers-”

“Now, LOOK, lady.”

Tavros hesitantly looked up at that moment. Gamzee had risen to his full height of 6’2’’, and now towered over the lady. His fists were clenched. The normal clown makeup looked rather goofy when a snarl distorted them, but Tavros couldn’t even laugh at that. He could basically feel the waves of rage pouring off of Gamzee. The woman had stepped back a few feet, her face far less assured than it had been.

“Lady, I don’t care what you wanna say about motherfuckin’ help, but the second you start callin’ my bro ‘POOR’ and ‘DEFENSELESS’,” he said, moving closer on his emphasized words, “is the day that I gotta teach you a lesson. He’s a fuckin’ PERSON, just like the rest of us. He ain’t your charity ward, and he doesn’t need YOUR. FUCKING. HELP. SO GET THE FUCK OUT, LADY!”

The woman could have won at least the bronze, if not the silver, in the 100 meter dash at the speed that she ran the fuck away.

Tavros spun towards Gamzee, placing his hand gently on his. It was hard to calm down Gamzee in this state, but it was at least worth trying. He intertwined their fingers and waited. Gradually, the heat pulsing off of him began to ebb away, and his stature no longer cast such a long shadow. His face turned from anger to a general unhappiness. The scowl turned to a frown. Gamzee was sad.

“Awwww, Gamzee,” Tavros said quietly. “You don’t have to be, uh, sad for me.”

“I know, Tav-bro, but it’s not motherfuckin’ fair. Why do people gotta all up and be so degradin’ to you? You just gotta wheelchair! You look so cool in it, too!”

Tavros laughed, a nervous, nasally noise. “Gamzee, I know I look cool in my wheelchair. But some people like to think that they’re helping or something.”

“So I shouldn’t have come by and scared her the motherfuck away?”

“Now, I did not say that. At least, er, I think I didn’t.”

Gamzee laughed, a big, hearty noise from the bottom of his stomach, before leaning down and giving his boyfriend a kiss on the nose. “Nah, bro, you didn’t. I’m glad I came by.”

Tavros giggled, wrapping his arms around Gamzee and pulling him in for a kiss, a deep, full one. Gamzee’s clown nose made a peculiar noise as it was smushed in between them, causing both of them to laugh between kisses. Before long, they had degraded into giggle fits, snorts and chortles and guffaws and everything else happy.

Gamzee took his place beside Tavros, and they looked through the entrance of the park, at the rides, the games, the food, the prizes, and the big top tent. So much to do, so little time. And then there were the dress rehearsals, the final show, the afterparty…

Tavros finally felt ready to face it all.

He took Gamzee’s hand for a brief moment, then squeezed and let go, pushing himself into the amusement park, with Gamzee not helping, but just walking. And talking. And living. And loving.

LOTS of loving.

\--------  
And Gamzee felt even more loved after the show, when he saw the text that Tav had left him.

“,,,good luck boyfriend! you’re gonna, uhh, blow the roof off that place. but don’t actually that would be bad.”

Gamzee chuckled, and typed a very simple reply

“:o)”.


End file.
